Rough agalinis (Agalinis aspera) COSEWIC assessment and status report: chapter 4

Distribution

Global range

Agalinis aspera ranges throughout the central plains of North America from Manitoba to Texas. State records with NatureServe (2004) ranks, in brackets, include: Illinois (SNR), Iowa (S4), Kansas (SNR), Louisiana (SNR), Minnesota (SNR), Missouri (SNR), Nebraska (S4), North Dakota (SNR), Oklahoma (SNR), South Dakota (SNR), Texas (SNR) and Wisconsin (SNR). The designation SNR represents not ranked/under review and S4 is secure. The USDA PLANT Database (2004) records A. aspera from seven counties in Arkansas; NatureServe (2004) does not record A. aspera from Arkansas. As no other records were found besides those on NatureServe to confirm the presence of A. aspera in Louisiana, Louisiana was not included in the map in Figure 2.

Pennell (1929) writes that A. aspera is “occasional on prairies and bluffs in Illinois; more frequent through southwestern Minnesota, western Iowa, through the Central Lowland from the western lake section to the Osage Plains, from eastern North Dakota to central Oklahoma; penetrating the Plains Border in Kansas and the eastern High Plains in Nebraska.” More recent records (Ownbey and Morley 1991) record A. aspera in several counties across southern Minnesota and in western areas of central and northern MN.

Agalinis aspera, being typical of the Great Plains, occurs west of most of the other members of the genus Agalinis. Pennell (1929) considered Asperae, a section of Agalinis consisting of the single species A. aspera, to be a “unique western line of evolutionary progress,” based on the vegetative anatomical features described above.

Figure 2. Global range of Agalinis aspera within central North America based on NatureServe (2004), USDA’s The PLANTS Database (2004) and field observations for this study.

Figure 2.  Global range of Agalinis aspera within central North Americabased on NatureServe (2004), USDA’s The PLANTS Database (2004) and field observations for this study

Canadian range 

The Canadian range is limited to five rural municipalities in southern Manitoba: Brandon, Portage la Prairie, Woodlands, St. Laurent and Rockwood. Eleven populations, found within an area of occupancy of 4.7 km², are located at 1) Grosse Isle, 2) Warren, 3) Woodlands, 4) St. Laurent, 5) Poplar Point (six distinct populations in this area) and 6) Brandon. Specific locations are discussed below and shown on the map in Figure 3. 

Figure 3. Distribution of Agalinis aspera in Manitoba. Populations are numbered as in Table 1. The historic population near Morden (hollow circle) is now considered to be extirpated.

Figure 3.  Distribution of Agalinis aspera in Manitoba

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